


Never Give Up Without A Fight

by neuronary



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-13
Updated: 2019-12-13
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:02:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21779524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neuronary/pseuds/neuronary
Summary: Azula gives Zuko his knife back.(Inspired by/set in MuffinLance's Hama Adopts Zuko AU)
Relationships: Azula & Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 42
Kudos: 1537





	Never Give Up Without A Fight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MuffinLance](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MuffinLance/gifts).
  * Inspired by [The One Where Zuko's Hair Matches Sokka's and Other Tales](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21632206) by [MuffinLance](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MuffinLance/pseuds/MuffinLance). 



> You should probably go and read MuffinLance's Parts One to Three (Part Two by scrawling-stardumb) for this to make sense. (Hope you guys don't mind this. I can take it down if you do.) She mentions that Zuko got his knife back from the palace. I was wondering about how that might have happened.

Azula stands in the middle of the too-cold corridor and stares.

“Zuzu?” She’s not completely sure it was her that said it, but it’s said. He doesn’t reply. He doesn’t have to; she’d know those eyes anywhere.

Ozai didn’t look very hard for her big brother, but Azula did.

He looks like shit. Her thoughts are flying around inside her, too quick to really register, but he does. He’s too thin, much too thin, refugee thin. She’d always been able to take him with her hands behind her back, but now… all it would take was a nudge of her toe.

Her hand strays to the knife at her hip. She’s kept it there for six years. He abandoned her.

Didn’t he?

He still doesn’t say anything, but he’s gone paler (somehow, Agni, has he even seen the sun since he left?) and he’s shaking slightly. Azula’s thinks of Mother, of the way she trembled sometimes. Zuzu always helped her.

She wraps her arms around him clumsily. She can feel his heartbeat, even faster than hers through the thin rags he’s traded for dignified clothing. He squeezes her and it’s… odd. Her chest feels twisted and warm at the same time, like his fire has fuelled hers. His fire is still there, still strangely strong underneath her arms.

Three seconds. That’s longer than she really has.

Her hands don’t fumble with the knife, though she thinks for a moment that they might. She presses it into his chest.

“Come back when I’m Fire Lord, Zuzu. It won’t be long.”

Finally, he nods hastily. He must remember the way out, the secret one for the royals (and the royals only). He’s heading in the right direction, at least. Azula watches him go.

_ It won’t be long. _

Her fire burns with the heat of treason.

She has an Avatar to find, and a throne to take.

**Author's Note:**

> I think it goes without saying that Azula's treason was shortlived and quickly abandoned. She can be patient.


End file.
